256 AGRICULTUBAT, APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924, |, 



MANUFACTURE OF SYNTHETIC THYMOL. 



There is another thin*: that is comint; up in connection with the 

 work of that lahoratorv that I may refer to here and that is the 

 employment of cymene. whidi is a waste material from paper facto- 

 ries, as a basis for the manufacture of synthetic thymol. Thymol is a 

 disinfectant that has l)ccn used extensively by the medical fraternity 

 in this country and it also has another significant use in the treat- 

 ment of hookworm. 



This product has been brought from abroad exclusively, but we 

 have found it is possible to manufacture from cvmene a synthetic 

 thymol which seems to have every attribute that the product that we 

 have heretofore depended upon possesses. Thymol now sells for 

 about S4.50 a pouncl and we calculate it can be made in this synthetic 

 fashion for about .§2. .50 a pound. When you consider that there are 

 something like 2,000,000 gallons of cymene wasted each year in the 

 paper factories of this country and Canada the economic significance 

 of that is apparent. So that our line of work right now in this color 

 laboiatory is in specializing on matters connected with assisting 

 color manufacturers in putting outcolors on a tonnage basis not only, 

 but in giving consideration to those feature of color fabrication and 

 color identification that are essential but which do not, on account of 

 the smallncss of the output, give any particularly inviting reason for 

 manufacturei's to engage in that study themselves. 



INVESTIGATION OF METHODS AND MANUFACTURE OF SfRUPS AND 



SUCiAR. 



The next item is for the investigation and development of methods 

 for the manufacture of table sirup and sugar and of methods for the 

 manufacture of sweet sirups b}' the utilization of new agricultural 

 sources. 



We are asking for an increase in this appropriation. I told you 

 last year of the work that our carbohydrate laboratory was doing 

 in the South in fostering the use of invertase in the manufacture of 

 cane sirup as a means oi preventing fermentation, on one hand, and 

 crystallization on the other. That work has been accepted with an 

 enthusiasm on the part of the cane sirup producing sections that 

 exceeded anything we anticipated. In fact, last year, you may 

 recall, that the demand was so extensive that we felt it should be 

 submitted to the fiepartment and the dei)artment, in turn, through 

 the Bureau of the Budget, submit it to Congress. We took it up 

 with Congress and you efiected an even o:reater increase in that item 

 to ineci the emergency at that time. In adtlition to the work on 

 cane siruj) we are also studying, in an intensive way. some of the 

 technological difiicuhies with which the su^ar manufacturinir interests 

 of this country are confronted at the present time because of their 

 failure to get a proper \ ield of sugar from the material out t)f which 

 they are numufact wring it. You take, for instance, the beet sugar 

 interests of the country, and outside of the State of California, and 

 particularly in tlio.se .sections where storage is necessary, there is a 

 very (lecided diinitnition in the actual yield from wliat Is the actual 

 sugar in the product itself. Tliat loss, "which is borne jointly by the 

 farmer and by the manufacturer — and incidentallv, in this instance 



